Hairong Qi facts for kids

Hairong Qi (born in 1970) is a smart computer scientist from China. She is well-known for her work with computers that can "see" and understand images, like how our eyes and brains work. She also studies how different sensors can work together to collect information.

Professor Qi teaches at the University of Tennessee. She holds a special title there called the Gonzalez Family Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Learning and Her Career

Hairong Qi started her journey in computer science at Northern Jiaotong University in China. She earned her first degree in 1992 and a master's degree in 1995.

Later, she moved to the United States to continue her studies. She went to North Carolina State University and earned her Ph.D. in 1999. A Ph.D. is the highest university degree you can get. For her Ph.D., she wrote a big research paper about digital imaging systems.

Professor Qi joined the University of Tennessee as a teacher in 1999. In 2014, she was given the special title of Gonzalez Family Professor.

Helping Chickens with Computers

In 2022, Professor Qi was part of an exciting project. Her team received a lot of money, $1 million, to create a special computer system. This system uses computer vision to watch chickens on farms.

The goal is to monitor the chickens in real-time. This means the computer system can see what the chickens are doing right away. It helps farmers make sure the chickens are healthy and well-cared for.

It's harder to monitor small animals like chickens than bigger ones. This is because chickens are small and there are usually many of them together. Professor Qi and her team are helping to solve this challenge using advanced computer technology.

Books She Wrote

Hairong Qi has also written two books about how computers can "see." She wrote them with another scientist named Wesley Snyder.

Their books are called Machine Vision (published in 2004) and Fundamentals of Computer Vision (published in 2017). These books help students and other scientists learn about computer vision.

Special Recognition

In 2018, Hairong Qi was chosen as an IEEE Fellow. This is a very important honor given to top engineers and scientists.

She received this award because of her important work. She helped develop ways for different sensors to work together and process information. This is called "collaborative signal processing in sensor networks."